“Transhumanism” is a term first used by Julian Huxley (1957).
As humans have become aware of the possibilities for improving themselves and eventually mankind as a whole. All humans will one day have their basic needs fulfilled, “poverty, disease, ill-health, over-work, cruelty [and] oppression”. Science will make this possible.
Very simply:
- Transhumanism is the process of this transformation.
- A “transhuman” is somebody who chooses to follow a path towards transhumanism.
- “Posthumanism” describes mankind after the goal of transhumanism is realised.
The terms transhumanism and posthumanism are also commonly used to describe a philosophy that involves the use of technology to improve/evolve the whole of humankind.
Author: jindarling
Bibliography
Humanity+ (n.d.) Transhumanist FAQ. Available from: http://humanityplus.org/philosophy/transhumanist-faq/#answer_19 [Accessed 14 January 2015].
Huxley, J. (1957) “Transhumanism.” Available from: http://www.transhumanism.org/index.php/WTA/more/huxley [Accessed 14 January 2015].
Jin – you’re right up to a point. Transhumanism (‘transitional human’) suggests that technological enhancement of the human is an evolutionary stage. In some of the literatures ‘the posthuman’ is the later stage of this transformation.
However – importantly – there is another strand of posthumanism which is more based in a critique of the philosophy of humanism – ‘critical posthumanism’. This isn’t anything to do with enhancement or transcendence of bodily limitation, but it’s rather to do with suggesting that we need to move beyond humanist philosophy in considering what it means to be human in the world: we can’t continue to see ‘the human’ as an essential entity that anchors all meaning and action, but need to think about how ‘the human’ is constituted by its interactions and dependencies on other non-human and material entities.
In my paper set for this week there is a bit more on this distinction, so keep up the reading and thinking! It’s good to see some substantive blog posts here in the lifestream, alongside the instagrams and tweets – great : )